


This Is How It Will Be Done

by FunkyinFishnet



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Ambition, Blood Magic, Cupcakes, Gen, Male-Female Friendship, Revenge, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 03:21:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14728991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyinFishnet/pseuds/FunkyinFishnet
Summary: Blood and gold; two concepts that are never far apart. Aleister Black is counting on it. He isn't the only one.





	This Is How It Will Be Done

**Author's Note:**

> Set before and after the 14th March 2018 NXT episode - the Almas-Black contract signing.

 

 

 

She approached Aleister. Not the other way round.

 

 

Aleister pressed fingers to the edge of his book, eyes still fixed on the words. Her footsteps were purposeful, determined, only hesitant when choosing a direction. Aleister offered no help.

 

 

Eventually, there was a flare of light and Candice LeRae approached. There was no grief in her manner, no tears. Only fury. She was clutching at least three white candles with a knife handle trapped between them. Aleister put his book down.

 

 

“Who told you?”

 

 

“Ember. She wants you to pay more attention to the first quarter moon.”

 

 

Did she. Aleister's eyebrows broke upwards. Candice didn't sound like she was telling a joke. Her expression was serious, there was tension in her jaw. She was focused.

 

 

Aleister didn't get to his feet. But he afforded her the respect of his level gaze as he asked the most pertinent question.

 

 

“How many cakes?”

 

 

Candice smiled, “Four peanut butter with chocolate frosting and marshmallows.”

 

 

Unsurprising. Ember accepted only sugar-sweetness in her desserts.

 

 

And she had informed Candice appropriately. Candice had come with candles, a knife and a purpose. He had always known her to be sharp. He didn't expect to be let down now. She held out the knife in one swift movement, an offering instead of a threat. Aleister didn't flinch. The blade glinted at him. It was untouched.

 

 

"Take whatever blood you need. I need to-."

 

 

Candice cut herself off for a moment. Her anger consumed her still but there were cracks. Aleister wasn't amused by them. He'd witnessed her bleeding before, because a sacrifice was always needed to grasp victory in battle and blood had gained her gold. But this was a different shedding and apparently she knew that and was more than willing. Fear had never been part of her armour.

  
  


Aleister gave her time to finish her thought. In the time he'd known her, before Florida and since, under both his names, she'd not given him reason to dismiss her. He knew the knife wasn't her only weapon. Her name had always remained the same.

  
  


“You're going after Almas for the title. I'm going after them both.”

  
  


Aleister's eyebrows rose. “Not Tommaso.”

  
  


Candice's expression hardened. There was pain now. A friendship, a family member, lost, by their own actions and perspective. Aleister had had tag team partners. None he'd had to bury yet.

  
  


“No.”

  
  


It was Candice's only reply. So, there was another plan in place for Tommaso. Or the Garganos hoped to ignore him unti he went away. Wounds did not heal through inattention. Unlike Aleister, the Garganos had always chosen light to guide them. It seemed foolish now if they'd chosen willful blindness. Tommaso had already proven how doggedly he was willing to remain their shadow. For a man who spoke so much about forging his own success, he stuck fast to the man he claimed was the source of his stagnant failures.

  
  


Aleister knew men like Tommaso Ciampa. Tommaso always met his gaze but he didn't challenge Aleister. Because Tommaso knew men like Aleister. Or so he believed.

  
  


“No,” Aleister echoed and he didn't ask for more.

  
  


He straightened his posture and his gaze measured her. Was this a warning? Candice didn't look away. Aleister didn't laugh.

  
  


“Relieving them of the gold they prize, that's not enough,” he stated.

  
  


“It's a start.”

  
  


Now Aleister smiled. Not a warning then, an offer. Candice knew that he had never been hesitant to match anyone in combat, with fists, feet or words. But to witness Zelina's expression when she realised that she had been outmaneuvered, that he was armed in ways she couldn't predict and plan for, that was better than simple victory.

  
  


Candice knew it too.

  
  


Aleister didn't offer her a hand to shake. He did take the blade from her grasp. Candice produced a book of matches from a jean pocket. Aleister's smile remained.

  
  


*

  
  


He didn't sign the contract in blood. That would have been a waste. He had what he needed.

  
  


When he next returned to his preferred corner of the Performance Centre, he found a batch of devil's food cupcakes. The note with them just said 'thank you' and was written on the back of one of the numerous Johnny Gargano logo signs that had surrounded Tommaso Ciampa so effectively.

  
  


Aleister broke a cake open and scooped out its insides.

  
  


_-the end_

 


End file.
